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A general frustration

When I posted this piece on Samizdata about getting held up in airport security and missing a flight yesterday, my thought was that I was perhaps being a little self-indulgent and I would be taken to...

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Impressing the Swiss

Last week, I spent some time waiting for a bus at this road intersection in Croatia. The direct bus from Bihać in Bosnia goes to Zagreb, but as I was going to Zadar, I had to get off at the...

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Photo composition moments

I was looking for a nice contrast of things, and I thought that the bullring in the foreground, an in some ways fairly typical spanish city in the middle, and a long line of cranes indicating that this...

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Etymological puzzles.

When staying in hotels in Asia, it is quite common to find that the hotel will offer a "baby sister service". This is exactly the same as a baby sitter, of course, and the expression makes sense...

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Chinese telephone companies.

I left a comment over that The Register that got a little out of control. If anyone wants to hire a telco analyst, I am available.In the mid 1990s, there were two 2G GSM mobile networks set up in...

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Patterns persist.

If you map Mobile phone conversations of today, you get The Nine Nations of North American as envisaged by Joel Garreau in 1981.Smart guy, Garreau. His other book Edge City probably helped me...

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Etiquette for the modern world

I was having lunch in a nice London restaurant with a female, foreign friend of mine. She wanted to tweet, SMS, update her various friends and social networks to tell them where she was. However, she...

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Silliness

Pilllip II of Macedon National Stadium, Skopje, Macedonia.The aforementioned Phillip was the first of only two national managers who led successful European campaigns. (Skopje is in a bowl in the...

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In which Michael possibly reveals himself to be a travel snob

A couple of days after the riots broke out in London over the weekend, Prime Minister David Cameron rushed back from his holiday in Tuscany to deal with the situation, or something. Seirously, what is...

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Unnecessary Complexity.

Cory Doctorow of Boingboing (amongst other things) was naturalised as a British Citizen a few days ago. On Twittter, he expressed curiosity as to why on his citizenship certificate had the words...

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Customer service

I have a 2007 model 15 inch Macbook Pro. This has served me extremely well, and it withstood rough treatment: it has been carried round South America (and other places) in a backpack; it was dropped...

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On beer

I am just back from an eastern European trip. In 19 days I visited Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova (including Turkic speaking Gagauzia and the largely Russian speaking city of Balti), western Ukraine,...

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On Budweiser

While discussing Czech beer in the last post, I mentioned that Budvar beer is widely available in Slovakia, but did not touch upon probably the most interesting trademark dispute I know of, which is...

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Mental games

When I travel, I am usually very good at separating the "getting there" and "getting home" parts of a trip from the trip itself. At the end of a trip, I am very experienced at figuring out precisely...

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More travel related mental skills.

Over the summer, I have been to Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Albania, and Kosovo. With the exception of Slovakia and Kosovo (which use the euro,...

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Rugby World Cup 2011

On Wednesday I recorded a podcast with Brian Micklethwait, Patrick Crozier, and Antoine Clarke, in which we discussed the 2011 Rugby World Cup, which is about to reach the quarter final stage.

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Linguistic observations

When I started using the internet and related networks (long time ago now - late 1980s) it was pretty much an entirely English language thing. The critical mass was pretty much not there for much to...

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More travel

My 2011 travel photoessay is here. The previous five are here, here, here, here, and here. The rules for how many photos I post are here. The stretches this year are that Ceuta is part of Spain...

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Illusions.

Last week, I was in a car, being driven south along the Israeli coast, from the Lebanese border in the direction of Acre. We were of course driving south, but my mind kept telling me we were driving...

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They are still doing it after all this time.

An old complaint, but I live in the UK and most of my family live in Australia. In such circumstances, the DVD is the perfect gift for birthdays and Christmases and such. It is inexpensive, lightweight...

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Parking meters in Old Pasadena

This article on how the history of parking policy has influenced the built environment in Los Angeles is fascinating. Intriguingly, it tells the story of the parking meters in Old Pasadena, with which...

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Kutaisi airport public transport information.

Kutaisi airport in Georgia is a new airport, with relatively few flights at present. However, due to Wizzair's direct flight from Kiev, it is now the cheapest location to arrive in if you are coming to...

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UK LTE networks

We now have three of four British mobile networks (EE, O2, and Vodafone) offering 4G/LTE networks. Just looking at the SIM only pay monthly tariffs (which are the cheapest), none of them are offering...

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How to evolve from being a business into being a scam: Part 1. Banks.

Both my British and Australian banks charge me utterly outrageous exchange rates when I want to convert money between AUD and GBP. (We are talking something like 5% in spread and commission). As it...

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How to evolve from being a business into being a scam: Part 2. Mobile phone...

I complained the other day about the charges that both my British and Australian banks hit me with when I want to move and convert money to and from Australia, and the need to engage the services of an...

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